


Finding Common Ground

by Lady_Knight



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Anger, Bonding, Elena being a badass, Elena calls Sam out, F/M, Family, Feels, Humor, Love, Samuel Drake being remorseful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 13:28:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18966190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Knight/pseuds/Lady_Knight
Summary: After getting separated from Nate, Elena and Sam try to find their way back to him while also airing out their issues with each other. But how do you find common ground when you keep getting off on the wrong foot?





	Finding Common Ground

**Author's Note:**

> This fandom's still active, right?? I always seem to jump on the fanfic train way too late haha. I've recently finished playing through Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and that gave me some much-needed inspiration to finally finish this damn thing and post it. I've honestly always found Elena and Sam's conversation at the end of A Thief's End to be really interesting, and I was always pretty curious about how they got to that point, since when she showed up on the island to save Nate she did not seem happy with either of them. Anyway, this was both a small aside to kind of fill in the gaps and an excuse to bring up all my issues with Sam to the forefront. I like him as a character, don't get me wrong, he's great, but he could've used way more of a talking to from Nate and Elena. So, here it is!

Elena feels the explosion behind her more than she hears it.

Sam collides into her before they both hit the deck hard, blown back by the force of the blast. It rattles the hull of the half-collapsed ship, the deck shaking under them. Finally, it splinters, and the other half of the galleon breaks away. In the back of her mind, Elena thinks she hears a scream. It takes a moment for her to break through her daze and sit up. Sam groans and rolls onto his back, taking his weight off her.

But where’s Nate?

“Nate!” She’s on her feet at once, scrambling to the edge of the deck where the rocket hit, but there’s nothing. “Nate?!”

Sam is slower to get to his feet, but once he’s shaken off the shock of the explosion, he’s right there with her. “Shit, Nathan?!”

“Over there! Get them!”

They don’t have time to search for him. The Shoreline mercenary with the rocket is loading another one up. Elena goes to reach for her gun and swears under her breath when she realizes it’s not on her. Her eyes scan the deck for any sign of it, but she’s not quick enough.

Sam is though. He pops off a shot at the merc’s head, and it’s enough to knock off his helmet. He staggers, still gripping the RPG, and finally mounts it onto his shoulder once more, aiming at them.

Another shot hits him in the shoulder. The rocket falls from his hands and he collapses with a grunt.

“Come on, we gotta go!” Elena shouts, seeing more mercenaries converging on them. She finds her gun, loads another clip into it and jumps over the side of the ship onto the rock face below, stumbling a bit. Sam follows soon after and they take off towards the shore, heading through the foliage to stay hidden.

After walking for what feels like hours, Elena’s mind has time to settle and her thoughts drift back to Nate. She didn’t see him go down with the ship, that’s a good thing, right? There’s a chance that he could be okay and not…

She shakes her head. With his luck, he probably got washed ashore along the beach somewhere. He’s probably wandering around near their side of the island. It wouldn’t be the first time he unwittingly found his way back to her.

 _It also wouldn’t be the first time we ended up in a situation like this…_ Elena glances at Sam as he walks behind her.

After Nate mentioned the story about Alcazar, she almost wanted to punch _him_ in Sam’s stead. Talking Nate into this little secret adventure would’ve been enough on its own, but he had to act like _his life was in danger_ to get Nate to come with him? She couldn’t imagine Nate ever stooping that low.

For brothers, Sam and Nate are remarkably different. Elena wasn’t sure what to expect when Nate had awkwardly introduced Sam. Looking at him now, the deeper lines in his face, the tattoos, the smell of smoke that lingers around him, everything about him is alien to her. Sam doesn’t have Nate’s awkward charm, his excitability, or his decency. Being here with him doesn’t feel right to her, not after he convinced her husband to lie to her and risk his life on yet another desperate treasure hunt. Now here they all are, on an island full of ancient deathtraps and gun-wielding mercenaries who want them dead.

Elena sighs. Some things never change.

“We should go back and look for Nate,” she finally says, stopping to look at Sam. “I’m kinda worried.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, rubbing absentmindedly at the wound on his arm. “I’m…I’m sure he’s fine, ya know?”

Elena nods. “He’s gotten out of worse scrapes than this, trust me.” She tries to sound confident, but the look on Sam’s face tells her she’s not very convincing.

“Yeah…Yeah, I know.”

As they start backtracking, every little noise or movement catches Elena’s attention. The birds rustling in the tree tops, the water rushing down the river nearby, every small shift in the jungle has her on edge and she’s not sure why.

She keeps one hand near her holster as she scans the area around them.

“So, uh…how long’s it been?”

Elena stops walking. “Uh…w-what?”

When she turns to look at Sam, he’s standing a good distance behind her, his hands tucked casually into his pockets. Despite the mud caked onto his clothes, the small cuts and bruises on his face and arms, and his disheveled hair brushed back out of his face, she can definitely see the resemblance in that moment.

The squint in his eyes as he stares off into the distance and the way he purses his lips are all Nate. He has this detached, faraway look on his face, like he’s imagining something much grander and exhilarating than their trek through the jungle. When he focuses on her again he smiles, awkwardly.

“You and Nathan, how long’s it been?”

“Oh,” Elena says. It’s not something she was expecting to hear from him, especially with everything that’s happened over the last few days. She wants to ignore the question and tell him to get a move on, but before she can stop herself she’s counting off the time in her head.

“Seven years; married for four.” She holds up her left hand where the wedding ring glimmers in the sunlight. She finds herself staring down at it. Hoping. Worrying.

To her surprise, Sam chuckles. “Never took Nathan for the marrying type.”

It’s such a simple comment, but it stabs at her in a way she can’t explain. She drops her hand back to her side.

“Neither did I,” she says, sounding annoyed as she looks at him again. “Guess there’s a lot I don’t know about him.”

Sam’s face falls, and he can see the hurt in her eyes as she turns away. “Hey, Elena? I…I didn’t mean…I wasn’t trying to—”

“Let’s just find Nate and get the hell out of here.”

The last thing she wants to hear is an excuse from him. _He’s_ the whole reason they’re here, after all. Part of her feels irritated with herself for even wanting to divulge anything about the life she and Nate share, when she still knows so little about Sam. It seems unfair, in a way, and the more Elena thinks about it the more she realizes that Sam is still a stranger.

She clenches her jaw and keeps walking, hearing Sam’s footsteps as he hesitantly follows.

About 20 minutes later, Sam picks up his pace, rushing up ahead until he’s standing directly in front of her.

She looks up. “What?”

“Hey,” Sam says. “I know we kinda got off the wrong foot, and believe me, this isn’t at all how I was planning to meet you—”

“This isn’t about me, anymore, Sam. This is about Nate,” Elena cuts him off flatly.

Sam sighs, exasperated. “Yeah, I know, we need to find him, and we’re going to, but I just wanna explain—"

“Explain what? How you _lied_?” she says, staring hard at him. The words cut into him like ice, and he freezes. “Yeah, I know about the Alcazar story.”

Sam winces. “You—you don’t understand.”

Elena scoffs. “What is there to understand? You manipulated your brother into coming along on this little family reunion. You lied to him, to all of us.”

Sam holds up his hands. “Hey, you got it all wrong, I didn’t put a gun to his head—”

“But you’re his _brother_. You think if there was even a chance that your life could be in danger that Nate would say no? How was he was supposed to turn you down? You didn’t give him a choice, Sam. And yeah, I know it takes two to tango. I’ve sorted everything out with Nate. But you? You’re not off the hook, not by a long shot.”

Sam glances off to the side, then down at his feet. “I did this for us.”

“You did it for _you_ , because you’re willing to risk anything and everything to find that treasure,” Elena says pointedly.

“Hey,” Sam’s voice is firm as he looks up, staring back at her. “Nathan’s family, and we’re in this together. You don’t know what it’s like for us, what’s it’s _been_ like. After everything we’ve gone through, I’d never risk his life over something like this.”

They stand there in silence for a long time, and Elena doesn’t move.

There are a dozen ways she can respond to that, with biting sarcasm or just throwing it back in his face. Instead, she takes a deep breath, and decides to let this be a teaching moment. Watching his face carefully, she responds, “Then walk away from this. Help me find Nate, and then we can all leave together.  You, me, Nate, and Sully, we’re all a family now, like it or not. No more bullshit, Sam. No more secrets. Let’s just cut our losses and go.”

Sam watches her for a long time before tearing his gaze away. He rubs the back of his head, staring off into the distance, firm and focused this time. It’s not until he looks back at her again that she realizes what he’s been looking at the entire time. Before he can open his mouth to speak, an explosion rings out in the distance.

Towards the mountain. Towards Nate.

 

* * *

 

When they find him, all of Elena’s anxiety melts away. She hugs him, tighter than she’s ever hugged him. She makes a crack about Sully saving his ass again, and they all smile.  For a moment, it feels like she, Nate, and Sully are all back on that boat, sailing away from the island where they’d found El Dorado all those years ago.

But that’s in the past, she realizes, looking at the scrape on Nate’s forehead, the lines in his face, and the gray around his temples. There’s only so many times she can stand to almost lose him. Back when they were younger, and the thrill of adventure and the adrenaline brought them together, it was easy. There were no attachments at first, no strings. But over time she grew to love him, and it got harder and harder to watch throw himself into danger. That time was over, they had to be smarter, safer, they’d decided. Because Elena didn’t want to think about what would happen if she _actually_ lost him this time.

But seeing Sam come around the corner, sheepish and awkward as he approaches them, she also realizes she’s not the only one who loves Nate.

It only becomes more apparent when Nate goes after him. She can’t bring herself to be angry. She wants to stop him, to tell him that Sam’s not worth saving and they need to leave while they’re all still breathing, but she lets him go. She had tried talking sense into Sam, but in that moment, she knows the only one who can really get through to him is his little brother.

Maybe she really doesn’t understand, she thinks as she sits across from them on the plane later. Nate is huddled off to one side, sleeping away and completely oblivious to Sam as he lights up a cigarette, looking just as tired and worn out. He eyes her lazily from his seat.

“Hey, if you’re still mad, I get it.” Sam glances over at Nate. “Dummy should’ve just left me back there, I wasn’t worth it, not after I dragged him into my shit.”

Elena sighs. _Finally._ “Did the little brother finally talk some sense into you?” she asks, teasingly.

“Nah,” he says, looking back at her. “I was actually thinkin’ about what you said back there.” He sits up, pulling the cigarette from his mouth. “About me, the whole ‘selfish, manipulative jackass’ thing.”

“I didn’t call you a jackass,” she says patiently.

“I know,” he says, grinning. “Almost wish you had punched some sense into me.”

“I wanted to,” she admits, and smiles a little.

Sam smiles back, then flicks his eyes over to Nate. Taking another drag from his cigarette, he asks, “So, I take it he told you about how we ended up becoming two-bit, no good thieves?”

“Yep. He explained everything when I found him.” She doesn’t relish the memory, but she remembers hearing Nate talk about the old woman, all the artifacts in her home, and when she found them…

“It’s why he hates that I smoke, too,” Sam says quietly, looking down at the floor. “He’s never said it, but I always suspected that’s why.”

Elena nods, watching him sadly. “That must have been so terrible for you two.”

“Yeah…”

After a beat, he straightens up and smiles at her, but she can tell it’s a bit forced. “Anyway, enough about me, what’s it like being the wife of _notorious treasure hunter_ Nathan Drake?” he asks.

Elena just smiles, shaking her head. “You got a couple of hours?”  
  
“Well, it _is_ a pretty long flight home. Indulge me.”

“Where do I even start…”

Sam smiles.  “Start at the best part.”


End file.
